


Objection

by FrivolousSuits



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Cardiac Problems, Fake Marriage, Hospitalization, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrivolousSuits/pseuds/FrivolousSuits
Summary: When Mike announces he’s leaving, Harvey plans to hide the jagged pieces of his broken heart deep inside, where no one will ever find them.His heart would like to object.





	Objection

**Author's Note:**

> Edited a bit because I didn't like how I wrote Rachel's dialogue.

Harvey sneaks out of the wedding reception as subtly as he can, breathing hard, rubbing his chest where a sudden pain has bloomed. He’s not subtle enough.

“Harvey!” Louis calls from down the hallway.

“Not now, Louis.”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course,” he replies, his voice hoarse and very much not all right.

Louis’s own voice rises. “Should I call an ambulance?”

“Be quiet, and don’t call anybody–”

But they’ve already been discovered. Mike turns the corner and comes barreling towards them, also calling, “Harvey!”

“Mike, it’s not a problem.”

“You’re telling me it’s a–"

“Yeah,” Harvey cuts him off, leaving Louis to sputter in confusion, “it probably is.”

“But if it were—“ Mike mercifully leaves “a panic attack” unsaid— “would you have chest pain?”

“Yeah.”

“This much?”

“Maybe.”

“And only on the left side?”

Harvey glances down at his hand, which is indeed only pressing the left side of his chest, and then gives Mike a sour look. Mike shakes his head, pulls out his phone, and dials 9-1-1.

“Mike–”

Mike silences him with a glare. “Hi, I think my friend’s having a heart attack.”

“It’s not a heart attack,” he mutters.

“Harvey,” Mike says sharply, “would you just let me take care of you?”

Harvey leans back against the wall and wonders why his heart just skipped a damn beat.

* * *

He leaves the hotel to meet the ambulance, now accompanied by Donna as well as Louis and Mike. She and Louis cluck over him, trying to support him as he walks– even though he can still move on his own, thank you very much– while Mike stays just behind him, uncharacteristically quiet.

The paramedics are already there, waiting for him with the stretcher, and he sags down a little too eagerly, his face ashen and beaded with sweat. They open his shirt and start hooking him up to their equipment, winding wires around him, attaching him to an oxygen tube. He’s so distracted by the machinery that he barely hears Mike break his silence: “I’ll come with him.”

“What?” Harvey’s head snaps up.

“I’m sorry, sir,” one of the paramedics starts explaining in a patient tone, “but we can only let in family members. You’re welcome to drive to the hospital in a separate vehicle, if you obey all the traffic laws–”

Harvey interrupts, rasping, “He’s my partner.”

It’s true for a few more hours, until he files the paperwork to officially terminate Mike’s position at the firm. Even though Mike’s not his partner in a romantic sense– he isn’t even a loyal junior partner, what with this sudden absconsion to Seattle– Harvey wants Mike to stay with him.

He might even need it.

His claim about partnership is technically true, so he pushes himself up on his elbows and prepares to intimidate the paramedics into doing his bidding. Before he opens his mouth again, Mike says, “I’m his husband, this was the wedding.”

After a second, Harvey nods, adding, “And I want him.”

The paramedics immediately usher Mike into the passenger seat of the ambulance. Harvey collapses back against the stretcher, vaguely aware of Louis stuttering and Donna staring at Mike strangely. The only thing that really stands out is that Mike’s still staying with him.

* * *

The paramedics hand Harvey pills to thin his blood, and they take measurements and blood samples. At the same time they ask about his symptoms and whether he’s got any family history of heart problems.

“My father died of a heart attack,” Harvey replies in a monotone.

Mike shudders, but he doesn’t cease his research, entering query after query into his iPhone, gathering out all the information he can find on cardiac events. After a few minutes, the paramedics quit asking questions in order to interpret his EKG results; Mike hears them say “STEMI,” which his brain translates into “ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction,” the most brutal form of heart attack.

“I’ve been under unusual stress recently,” Harvey adds, addressing no one in particular.

Mike speeds up his search.

* * *

When they reach the hospital, the paramedics rush Harvey off down a hallway. They leave Mike in the ER waiting room, where he collapses in a plasticky chair.

A few minutes later, Donna and Louis rush through the doors. “Where is he?”

“At the cath lab for an angiogram,” he replies automatically.

Donna blinks. “What does that mean?”

“They’re injecting his blood vessels with dye to figure out where the blockage is.”

She nods slowly, only half-comprehending, and then hurries over to the counter to confer with the nurse.

Louis sits down beside Mike, who barks out a sudden laugh. “Oh my god, I finally gave him a heart attack.”

“Mike, this wasn’t you–”

“He thought it was a panic attack,” Mike says, lowering his voice as other patients shoot him odd looks. “His panic attacks were about Donna last time, but they’re okay right now, aren’t they?”

“I think so,” Louis nods.

“And the ultimate cause wasn’t Donna, it was her abandonment, and Louis–” his voice stops in his throat, but he pushes past the horror– “I told him about an hour ago that I was leaving for Seattle and never coming back.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Louis shifts in his seat, opening his mouth to speak several times and then closing it. “You still don’t know for sure. It could be Donna, it could be something that happened in Chicago. You never know.”

Louis goes on, explaining how there’s a million possible causes that can’t be traced back to him. The words wash past Mike.

* * *

Over an hour later, the angiogram really should be done, but Mike still hasn’t heard anything. He gets up to check in with the nurse, when he hears—

“Mike!” Rachel rushes in, her wedding dress exchanged for a blouse and slacks, her hair still swept up in a perfect bun. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“We were all running here,” Louis answers as she pulls Mike into a hug.

“But is he going to be okay?”

“We don’t know yet,” Donna says cautiously.

“What caused it?”

“We don’t know,” Mike mumbles.

She pulls back, nodding. “Okay. Well, I just delayed the flights to the two o’clock, so we can stay for a bit—“

“Wait, what flights?”

“Our flights to Seattle.”

“You think— you think we’re still going to Seattle?”

“Mike,” she says in an insistently reasonable tone, “It’s not ideal, but Forsyth’s set up five client meetings for Monday. If we skip out on them for anything short of a death in the family, we’re going to look profoundly unprofessional and break our clients’ trust before we even have it.”

“This could be a death in the family.”

“It won’t be.”

“If you dare say he’s not our family–”

“I’m saying he’s young,” Rachel interrupts, “and healthy, and he got treatment quickly, and he’s in an excellent hospital with Louis and Donna–”

“So what does he need me for?” Mike asks drily.

“He wouldn’t want you to give up your own opportunities for him.”

“What he wants is not always what he needs,” he retorts.

“Mike, be rational about this. Assuming he survives right now, he can go on living without you–”

A nurse interrupts her by calling out, “Mr. Specter?”

“I–” Mike stammers. “I think that’s me.”

He ignores how Rachel’s jaw drops as he rushes out.

* * *

The nurse lets him into the hospital room, and Mike finds Harvey leaning back on a bed, dressed in a faint green gown, clammy and pale under the fluorescent lights.

“How are you feeling?”

“Just fine.” Pushing himself up on his elbows, Harvey flashes him the smirk he uses every day for business, and he must be exhausted if he thinks that’ll work on Mike. He’s still trying to formulate a reply when the doctor knocks and enters.

“Well, Mr. and Mr. Specter,” she says, brushing salt-and-pepper hair out of her eyes and glancing down at her clipboard, “I have some good news for you. It appears this was _not_ a heart attack. Instead, you’re facing a different cardiac problem known as takotsubo cardiomyopathy –”

She goes on, explaining how Harvey’s over-stressed left ventricle went on strike and ballooned outwards, but Mike barely registers any of it. He’s on the verge of a heart attack himself, frantically reviewing all the information he read tonight.

“Now,” she finishes, “this most commonly appears in older women, so you must have been particularly unfortunate. On the bright side, you will likely heal from this and go back to a normal life.”

Just to be safe, she goes to arrange for Harvey to stay longer, leaving the two of them alone in the room.

“See, I told you it wasn’t a heart attack.”

Mike stares at his lopsided grin. “Are you _gloating_?”

“I’m just stating that I was completely right, while _you_ panicked for no reason.”

“And yet–” he plops himself down in one of the chairs– “I’m still not leaving.”

Harvey blinks, and the grin fades away. “Are you kidding?”

“Not on your life.”

“You have your deal with Forsyth,” he says, expression now darkening into a scowl. “You have a new life with Rachel off in Seattle–”

“Had.”

“You just _married_ her for that life.”

“No.”

“What?”

“We’re not married.”

“ _Excuse me_?”

“We have an appointment to sign the papers tomorrow– well, later today,” he answers quietly. “Hasn’t happened yet.”

“Legal technicality,” he scoffs. “It’s irrelevant.”

“Whether it’s relevant depends on one question.”

“Whether I’m okay?” Harvey groans and drops his head back onto the hard mattress, crinkling its paper cover. “You heard the doctor, I’ll probably be just fine–”

“Different question.” He pauses, trying to figure out how he can possibly pose this, but they’ve danced around this too long for anything but a direct approach. “Are you in love with me?”

“Why the hell would you think that?”

“Objection,” he says, voice gentle but firm, “non-responsive answer.”

“Mike.”

“Fine. You know what else takotsubo cardiomyopathy is called?”

“You tell me.”

“Broken heart syndrome.”

The words hang between them, until Harvey finally curses under his breath.

“Are you in love with me?”

Harvey opens his eyes and lets his head fall to the side, so he’s looking right at Mike, strangely soft and weary. “Objection.”

“Yeah?”

“Asked and answered.”

Now Mike’s brain whirs faster than ever, reviewing everything he’s lived through in the past seven years, only to report that Harvey’s been declaring his love for Mike since the day they met.

“Why didn’t you just _tell_ me?”

“Because,” Harvey sighs, “I’m not in the business of pursuing my direct subordinates, _or_ men who are happy with other people.”

Mike can’t help it, he hears “happy” and snorts. “Rachel just said I should fly to Seattle, didn’t matter how sick you were.”

“She’s a smart woman.”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “And I’ve wanted her a long time. Doesn’t mean I need her, or that she’s right for me.”

Harvey’s face twists with pain. “Forget me, you can’t break up just because of–” he gestures at the room– “this.”

“Harvey,” Mike says, leaning forward, his eyes sharp and intent, “I’ve been half in love with you for as long as I’ve known you, and I'm not leaving you now.”

“You sure about that?” he says, trying to sound demanding. “You’re not just saying it ‘cause I apparently can’t live without you?” His voice breaks on the last three words.

“Hey, I don’t need to make up the way I feel about you.” Mike rolls his eyes before confessing, “I just wasn’t in the business of pursuing straight men.”

Harvey’s eyes light up with a mix of laughter and exasperation, and Mike hopes they’ll have many years to properly make fun of each other. Yet Harvey only says, “So what happens now?”

“Now I drop an employment contract and escape marriage on a legal technicality.” He rises and opens the door, and then pauses. “And after that . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve gotta check whether my husband’s heart is healthy enough for sex.”

(Many, many years of sex.)


End file.
